Share Your Opinion: Worldwide Bike Park Survey
Almost everyone knows the lore of Whistler's world-class bike park, even those who have unfortunately never been. But we also regularly hear of new bike parks, from the 40-acre, city-built facility at Valmont in Boulder, CO, to the much smaller, volunteer-built pump park in Truckee, CA. Every new park claims to be better, cooler, more rad than the last, often for very different reasons.
But what makes a bike park great? We all have opinions, and you have probably been to purpose-built mountain bike trails and parks both awesomely and poorly executed in their design and construction.
The Colorado-based International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) wants to create a bike park database that will help its staff, which includes professional trail designers and builders, understand what makes a great park different from a crummy park, and how new community bike parks are coming into being.
If you have five minutes to share your experiences, whether you go big at lift-assisted parks or spend time sessioning the local dirt jumps; whether you build and design parks or just enjoy them casually with your kids, IMBA is looking to hear from you.
Please take this survey and help expand the mountain bike community's understanding of what works, what doesn't, and how and where bike parks are coming into existence. When the numbers are crunched, the breakdown will be posted on Pinkbike. Thanks!
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4-6 hours drive for us has some of the best natural trails in existence. I miss it.
Does anyone else feel this way about;
Thier Govt not supporting and building infastructure to encourage growth and economic boost in their OWN country for MTB Parks.
More than 70% of Australian riders go to Canada because they have lift access bike parks with oodles of trails. Think of how much of that money could be spent in your OWN country Australia.... Especially considering you could ride year round too.
Shame on you government. Sending people abroad to spend their money, and then complaining when we do. It's a real shame
The other thing is that our mountains are in National Parks and the restrictions are ridiculous.
Anyway, Stromlo in Canberra was govt funded, so the govt. is supporting MTB and building infrastructure.
I recently worked with IMBA on a project that I was spearheading and they knew very little about the industry. When I approached some prominent members of the industry, they didn't want to give out their information for free.
If lift accessed mtb parks are going to be successful, someone needs to step up and make industry information public.
We're currently soliciting the best designers, builders, riders, artisans, city planners and land managers in the business to contribute to this book. We appreciate any and all perspectives, hence the survey, and are grateful to all those who take it.
As you can imagine, riders who enjoy bike parks make up a very wide and diverse audience, and the culture is very much still underground in a lot of places, which is why this is a challenge and will be a long process to get it as right as possible. But hey, this is a start.
Reminds me a lot of the Sierra Club -- once, an entity that was in favor of wilderness accessible to those who respect wilderness -- but now, merely the voice of Yuppie Lifestylers who seek to ban anything that offends their bizarre sense of remote aesthetic appreciation.
IMBA, champion of the 4-foot-wide dirt sidewalk which goes under the Hipster term, "fast & flowy".
IMBA, always dumbing down the sport so that rank beginners can feel like experts.
Hooray for IMBA. Idiotic Morons Being Assertive.
When I was president of a local IMBA chapter 10 years ago, IMBA was pretending to find out what riders want. It then turned around and convinced the US Forest Service to determine it should put technical features on ski hills, so that the USFS wouldn't have to deal with "liability" (which doesn't exist) arising from technical trails used by multiple user groups and skill levels. Gee thanks for that one, IMBA.
Where has IMBA been on the boondoggle of "mechanized" meaning bicycles but not other mechanical devices, resulting in bicycles being banished not just from wilderness, but also managed-as-wilderness (study areas)? It's been sitting back, pretending it can't possibly change things. Mainly because IMBA = mediocrity, lowered standards, and idiocy.
Go pound sand, IMBA. Now that you've F'ed up trails, you want to F up bike parks too? Piss off.
It would be a nice tool to find the nearest bike parks, doesnt matter where you are...
Numbers of injured that sued the land owners = zero.
The only MTB-related suit I've heard of was when I lived in California over the jumps as Calabazas. The injured rider was horrified as his estranged step-father was, in the rider's opinion, going for a cash grab.
One thing most overlook is the way the bike park is kept up. The staff at Valmont is money in this department! The grounds always look great, restrooms are very clean and nice and most of all, the Guys & Gals do a great job with keeping up on the trails, jumps and features. Serious, I have never ridden on anything less that a perfect mix of fast & tacky conditions. Sprinkler systems help keep the conditions dialed.
Another park to note is the Frisco Bike Park. This palce is amazing! The Freeride course is a combo of full on DH mixed in with slopestyle features near the bottom. With the choice of 3 levels to ride, you can progress your skills. The black line features up to 30', a sick top section with lots of tables and step up's. Then the fun starts! 3 booters into a steep DH, a BIG right hip jump, 30' table/step up, large boner plank dropping into a left hip then a hige bern to finish it out. Massive amounts of flow!
The key for me is FLOW...
My home park is the Frisco Bike Park. Its awesome, however its not nearly as popular as the Valmont bike park. Although it doesnt have the traffic that Valmont has, it is growing amongst the local community. This is the second season that it is open, and with the addition of a super fun, fast and flowy dual slalom course the park now has a 3 race series that is gaining more attention as the summer moves forward. Like COFreeride said, there is a path/line for every level of rider, they all start in the same place and end in the same place, and can be watched from anywhere in the park, so when you say to your friend, "Did you see me almost eat Sh*t after that 3rd roller on the second straight?" He can respond with "Yea! HAHA" because you CAN see the whole course, and you can talk about it on the walk to the top again.
The key for me is PUBLIC SATURATION... let people know about the park, have races, have contests. Bring the community together once a week for an event regardless of how big the event is, it will get people riding, ideas brewing, new lines built and support from outside sources, which this sport needs.
As a volunteer, thats the most difficult thing to prove to the small resort thinking of doing this. They don't want to pay for IMBA or Gravity Logic or another group like that to do market research, but they want to know if they'll be successful or not. Many small resorts barely break even on costs, and spending hundreds of thousands on a bike park can be a dangerous bet.
If anything, I'd really like to see this new book have a section for the resort/business end as well. A small resort with a small biking community may want to donate to their local club, host events, or start with a pump track or dirt jumps first. These small resorts need to know that there is a way to "test the waters" before spending big bucks. So many resorts say "why do we want to spend good money on trails when we can have volunteer build them for us?" There has be some real hard numbers out there that give hope to the small resorts that they can build something small and still be successful.
On the flip side, the trail builders also have to give up some secrets too. Too many of IMBA literature is geared towards "we're consultants, pay us and we'll make you successful", well...not every resort wants to do that. Not every resort wants to hire a trail building company. When the trail building industry is so guarded about its secrets it hurts the real money: the riders.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3P3gjbHPxN0&feature=youtube_gdata_player